Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing company, is teaming up with SkyGrid, another Boeing company, for the integration and management of uncrewed aerial vehicles into the US national airspace.
“Both companies bring complementary expertise to the table, with Aurora providing technical expertise in autonomous aircraft operations and SkyGrid offering its solutions for AAM operators flying both crewed and uncrewed missions,” said the companies in a press release.
SkyGrid, a Boeing joint venture based in Austin, Texas, specializes in providing a ground-based system to meet the emerging needs of AAM. As an aviation Third-Party Service Provider (TSP), SkyGrid is developing a platform that provides AAM operators—flying both crewed and uncrewed missions—with a detailed digital representation of their operating environment. This system delivers pre-flight and in-flight situational awareness, as well as decision support services, to help operators safely and efficiently navigate today’s airspace.
“Aurora and SkyGrid share a vision for a future where autonomous air mobility is seamlessly integrated into everyday life,” said Jia Xu, CEO of SkyGrid. “By combining Aurora’s deep expertise in autonomous aircraft development with SkyGrid’s advanced digital platform for situational awareness and decision support for aviation autonomy, we are creating the foundation for a safe, efficient, and scalable airspace system that empowers operators to realize the full potential of advanced air mobility.”
Aurora engineers, based in Massachusetts, Virginia, and Switzerland, are working on technical development of the high assurance system that will ensure seamless integration of autonomous vehicles into the airspace. This system will support autonomous eVTOLs in maintaining situational awareness, detecting and avoiding potential obstacles, and providing critical information related to weather, air traffic, and other challenging contingencies. Aurora is providing leadership and subject matter expertise in the most critical disciplines, such as system engineering, architecture, software development, and certification.
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